Jessie King

On February 18th, 1889, a shocking trial opened at the High Court in Edinburgh. The defendant was a 27-year-old woman accused of the murders of three babies. Jessie King had no intention of keeping the babies she had taken in for money. Vulnerable, uneducated, and penniless, the young woman struggled to survive. Could it be that Jessie’s lover took advantage of her easily manipulated nature? Thirty years her senior and an unemployed alcoholic, Thomas Pearson had to find ways and means to feed his addiction.